What is Holistic Pelvic Health?
In order to speak about holistic pelvic health, we must start with a shared understanding of the pelvis and the central role it plays in our physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies. What did you call this part of yourself when you were a child? Did your mother or another relative teach you a word? Was it anatomical or was it a euphemism, a cover word to avoid embarrassment? Did the other schoolchildren use the same name you used at home or were you filled with shame to find you didn’t actually know the true name of your “private parts”? For many of us, our first encounters with our pelvises were met with some sense of shame due to societal and perhaps familial beliefs.
As a Ghanaian-American, I grew up referring to my vulva as a “duna”, the Ga word for the female pelvic area. I remember the shame I felt when a classmate in my New England neighborhood scolded me for using an incorrect word. I can still hear her, actually it’s called a vagina. It was confusing and embarrassing to feel like I’d not understood something so intimately mine. This experience has shaped my practice in providing culturally competent care. Cesar Chavez said our language is the reflection of ourselves. Understanding one’s pelvis and working towards optimal health is rooted in personal, cultural, and societal factors, that’s why it's so critical to approach pelvic health holistically.
The pelvis is dynamic. Skeletally, it’s where our upper body meets the lower body. Anatomically, it’s the site of reproductive organs and the processes that accompany them. Energetically, it’s where life force energy is generated and harnessed. When pelvic health concerns arise, it’s hard to know where to start. A holistic approach ensures that the many different physical, lifestyle, and emotional aspects of pelvic health can be explored and addressed to guarantee that you receive the best care possible. By approaching pelvic health holistically, we can get at the root of issues, and work together towards lasting pelvic wellness.
What is Holistic Pelvic Health?
Holistic pelvic health takes a “whole person” approach to pelvic health exploration, treatment, and maintenance. Integrating approaches from various lineages and frameworks, holistic pelvic health restores and maintains the wellness of the pelvic region by accounting for physical, emotional, spiritual, behavioral, and environmental factors and how they interact. The goal of a holistic pelvic health approach is to empower individuals to take an active role in their care, focusing on the body as a whole and continuous entity, rather than just treating symptoms in isolation. It's about balancing physical health with emotional and psychological support, so that the person can enjoy a more comfortable and vibrant life.
Holistic pelvic health recognizes the physical reality (and importance!) of the pelvic area in many bodily functions such as bladder and bowel control, sexual health, childbirth, movement, and strength and incorporates clinical and rehabilitative practices tailored to pelvic health issues. But holistic health does not stop there. While many pelvic health issues manifest physically, and physical aspects and symptoms are often the easiest for us to identify and speak about, there are also many emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of pelvic health that must also be understood and addressed in order to restore wellness. A holistic approach ensures we don’t stop short—overly medicalizing and isolating the pelvic area, but dig deeper to better understand emotions associated with the pelvis like sexuality, fertility, shame, and at times, trauma. A holistic approach is not a quick-fix, but it is a deep and lasting one. A holistic pelvic health approach empowers clients to understand themselves and their pelvic area more intimately, address immediate concerns, and work towards long-lasting wellness.
Why is Pelvic Health Important?
Can you describe what you did in the last hour? Perhaps you’ve been sitting at your desk, hip bones perched on an uncomfortable chair? Maybe you’ve been carrying around your two-year old who only seems happy when on your hip? Or, you had some me-time and stretched on your yoga mat or went for a run? Did you go to the bathroom? Are you on your period? Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we are engaging and relying on our pelvic area nearly constantly. Many of the regular actions we take impact our pelvic health positively or negatively without our awareness and yet pelvic health is a central indicator of overall health and wellbeing.
The pelvis is where the upper body (through the spine) connects to the lower body (via the hip bones). It’s where we expel our toxins through urine and stool. It’s where our genitals and reproductive system lives. For some, it’s where intuition lives, that small voice directing our daily choices. Optimal pelvic health means that all of these systems—skeletal, urinary, digestive, sexual, reproductive, and emotional—are working well.
Pelvic health is essential for sexual health, deepening our ability to explore deep connection and pleasure with others. It is essential to reproductive health and our ability to conceive and create new life when we desire. It’s also a major part of daily tasks—normal poops, urinating without urgency/leaking, sitting and standing without pain. While these tasks may seem mundane, anyone that has experienced pelvic health issues knows how traumatic and painful it can be when these tasks become difficult. Pelvic health is key to living a healthy, fulfilling life.
Key Factors of Holistic Pelvic Health Care
Physical
Physical pelvic health centers on the neurological and musculoskeletal manifestations of the pelvic area. To address physical dysfunctions, many treatment modalities can be used, including but not limited to myofascial release, abdominal massage, neuromuscular retraining, sensory perceptual retraining, functional movement training, chronic pain recalibration, soft tissue mobilization, breathing patterns, postural retraining, motor coordination, in addition to muscular downtraining and strengthening.
Emotional
Oftentimes, our emotions are intricately tied to function of the pelvic area. It can be very therapeutic and healing to address the emotional patterns and long held beliefs formed by lived experiences that deeply impact our experience of our pelvises. To address emotional factors related to pelvic dysfunction, we use a variety of approaches, including: nervous system regulation training, healing touch therapy, self care development, trauma-informed care, health advocacy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness, body-image restoration, eating disorder recovery, and breathwork.
Lifestyle
Our daily habits and demands shape our pelvic health for better and for worse. By investigating daily habits like eating, exercising, bathroom usage and sexual practices, we can better understand how your current routines may be supporting or inhibiting optimal pelvic health. Through an understanding of lifestyle factors, we can create a plan to increase positive factors (stretching, pleasure driven intimacy, more body awareness for sitting and standing tasks and supportive environmental modifications) and decrease negative factors (maladaptive posture, obligatory sex, consuming foods that cause poor digestion, and toileting behaviors that perpetuate dysfunction). Addressing the lifestyle component of pelvic health ensures that progress is lasting and continues well beyond your time with a pelvic health therapist.
Consent and Trauma Informed Care
When pelvic health care is rooted in a holistic foundation, trauma-informed and consent based approaches are a staple. As a practitioner, I am honored to be trusted by my clients to help them in exploring their pelvic floor issues. For many clients, this may be the first time they have the opportunity to explore their vulvas and vaginas in a positive, thoughtful, safe and therapeutic way. This is why I am committed to considering all the different aspects that compose one’s pelvic health and work intentionally with discernment to ensure that we are using the best approach based on a client’s unique history.
Issues Addressed Through Holistic Pelvic Health
Given the importance of the pelvic area, it’s no surprise that dysfunctions in pelvic health manifest in a number of physical and emotional issues. A complete list of issues that can be addressed through pelvic health therapy are listed here. Some of the most common issues include:
Incontinence: Leaking urine, stool, or gas and can be related to urgency, pressure with sneezing/coughing/movement, or both.
Pelvic Organ Prolapse: A collapse of uterine or pelvic muscles which often feel like heaviness with bearing down, extended standing, or after penetration.
Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (LUTS): Trouble urinating or urinating too often (4-8x/day is ideal) or the need to get up more than 1x/night to urinate.
Diastasis Recti: Separation of the “6-pack” abdominal muscles, most commonly caused by pregnancy, but can also be related to bariatric surgery, obesity, and lifting injuries.
Pelvic Pain: Referring to any pelvic pain with acute, sporadic, chronic, or activity-induced manifestations and the cause of that pain can be multi-faceted or unknown. Pain can also be cyclical, which may worsen at a certain time of day or menstrual cycle. Some common types are known as vaginismus, dyspareunia, dysmenorrhea.
Benefits of a Holistic Approach to Pelvic Health
Oftentimes pelvic health only comes to our consciousness when a pelvic health concern arises. Common pelvic health concerns include pelvic pain or incontinence, which impact going to the bathroom, sitting, standing, our ability to experience pleasure with ourselves and potential partners, and our comfort moving freely and confidently in the world. A holistic approach to pelvic health ensures that we don’t treat symptoms in isolation, which only offering temporary solutions that often mask symptoms rather than addressing root causes. Holistic pelvic health is a path towards lifelong pelvic wellness and daily ease and confidence.
Finding a Qualified Holistic Pelvic Health Therapist
You’re almost there. Recognizing that you want to improve your pelvic health—whether because of an acute issue or a sense of longing for more connection to this part of your body—is a critical first step. Since you’ve already made it to my page, you’re well on your way to finding the right pelvic floor therapy services. If you’re based in Colorado and are interested in whole person, informed, thoughtful pelvic floor care incorporating 14 years of expertise, then feel free to reach out to schedule a free informational call to explore if it’s a good fit to work together on your pelvic health.
Deciding on a pelvic health therapist is an important and intimate decision. It’s pivotal that you find a provider that will be able to understand your unique history and offer practices that are suited to your needs. Pelvic floor therapists have diverse approaches and can range from traditional outpatient physical therapy approach, which involves assessing the ROM and strength of the pelvic floor muscles, and developing a plan of care from there. Others are more focused on complementary forms of body work, like visceral manipulation, craniosacral therapy, mayan abdominal massage, myofascial release, vascular congestion and lymphatic drainage that they incorporate into their toolbox to address your pelvic health concerns. The most important thing is finding the right fit and a sense of comfort with your provider.
I specialize in:
Pregnancy and postpartum recovery
Vascular and pelvic congestion
Therapeutic hatha and tantra yoga
Functional movement retraining
Breathing and postural retraining
Chronic pain recovery
Craniosacral therapy
Holistic eating disorder recovery
Congratulations on beginning your journey towards pelvic wellness. I hope to hear from you and wish you healing and understanding on your journey.
